vcita's built in source tracking mechanism allows you to quickly identify the origin of a client's contact with your business. Knowing the source of new conversations is critical for accurately analyzing how effective your advertising efforts are. This insight will help you plan productive marketing activities and invest in the channels that are most lucrative. 

This article explains how to view source tracking data in your account and describes some of the parameters involved:

• Viewing the Source Tracking Summary
• Viewing the Source of a Conversation
• Viewing the Source of a Booking
• Viewing Client Sources
• Understanding Conversation Sources and Parameters

Viewing the Source Tracking Summary

The Top Sources section of the Dashboard lists all conversation sources and displays the total number of conversations that originated from each source. The source that generated the most conversations is listed first.

To view your top sources, open the Dashboard menu. On the right side of the page, at the bottom of the Recently Active Clients pane, click Top sources. 

Clicking a button in the Top sources pane opens a filtered view of the Inbox that displays only conversations originating from the selected source. For more information, refer to Viewing the Source of a Conversation (below). 

Note: Notice that third-party sources, as well as any custom sources you create, are included in the Top Sources summary. For more information about common sources and their parameters, click here. For details about creating custom source tagging, click here.

Viewing the Source of a Conversation

You can check all your conversation sources at a glance, directly from your Inbox. The Sources folder contains a list of sources of all conversations stored in the Inbox. Clicking on a source filters the Inbox view to display only conversations that originated from the selected source. 

Viewing the Source of a Booking

To see the origin of an individual booking, open the conversation and scroll to the appointment you want to find the source for. Click on the appointment.

Under More info, you will see the source origin. If the source was a website or other internet link, you will be able to click the URL from the Source details popup to view the source page. For more information about checking sources, refer to Understanding Conversation Sources and Parameters.

Clicking on the hyperlinked source opens the Source details popup, where you can see more information about the source. In the example below, we see that the source originated from the Client Portal, along with the Referring URL. 

Here is another example of the different types of sources you may encounter. We see that the source message was sent via SMS (not email), and that the message type (Campaign) was a Reminder message.

To view the sources of many conversations simultaneously, you can export your client list. The export report can display information about all scheduled or requested appointments, including the source of the conversation connected with the bookings. 

Viewing Client Sources

It is often useful to review the original marketing sources of your client pool. A client's marketing source is the origin of the first conversation with the client. Examples of marketing sources are automatic messages, direct links (e.g., your client portal), imports, etc. 

To view the source of an individual client, go to the Clients menu and click on a client. On the 3rd section of the client's main card, click 'Show more' under Contact Information.  The source is then listed on the right side of the page, under Additional Info.

To view the sources of many clients simultaneously, you can generate a Client Report. The marketing source of each client will be listed in the Source column of the report.

Possible sources of a client:

• Initiated by staff: imported or added manually by a staff member
• Client portal: Originated from your client portal 
• Direct link: Accessed a direct link
• Website: A widget on your website

Understanding Sources and Parameters

The main sources are: 

• Initiated by staff: Manually initiated by a staff member
• Website: An internet page from which a client was able to contact you or make a booking.
• Client Portal: A page of your vcita Client Portal. (The Portal is a site dedicated to promoting you and your business.)
• Announcement: A marketing drive that you create within your vcita account and distribute via email or SMS.
• Automatic message: A message generated by vcita to help you automate business workflows. The messages can be is sent via email or SMS.  

You can see the referring URL for a website or Client Portal source in the Source details popup (refer to Viewing the Source of a Conversation, above). In the case of a website source, the popup also displays the Channel, or the type of widget that was used as the source. Some examples of website channels are buttons, calendars and contact forms.

When the source is an Announcement, the popup shows the distribution channel (Email or SMS) and the name of the Announcement. Clicking the link opens the Statistics page for the Announcement. 

Other sources include third party integrations (e.g., Quickbooks, Zapier, etc.) and customized source tracking links that you have created.